


Arranged

by enkaychi



Category: DBSK | Tohoshinki | TVfXQ | TVXQ
Genre: Alternate Universe, Arranged Marriage, Drabble, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-02
Updated: 2014-02-02
Packaged: 2018-01-10 22:02:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1165058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enkaychi/pseuds/enkaychi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yunho didn’t expect to be married by age twenty-three.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> More drabble series than chapter fic.

Yunho didn't expect to be married by age twenty-three. He thought he would have more time. For what, he wasn’t quite sure. More time to spend with his friends. More time to have fun. More time to be young. More time to find the right person.  
  
More something.  
  
He didn’t expect the right person to be someone he hadn’t found himself but someone who had been found for him. He would never have married someone his parents didn’t approve of but he had wanted the chance to introduce the perfect person to them, to be able to go to them and say, “This is the person I want to share my life with.”  
  
He didn’t expect to go home and be told, “This is the person you’re going to marry.”  
  
He could have refused them, could have walked away but walking away from the person his grandfather had chosen for him would have meant walking away from the security of his family, walking away from the business he had been groomed since childhood to take over, walking away from everything he had ever known.  
  
Yunho didn’t know how to live that way. He didn’t want to learn to live that way.  
  
So he didn’t walk away. He didn’t refuse them. He would marry Kim Jaejoong, but he didn’t know what he would do with him after that.  
  
-  
  
Jaejoong did not have horrible parents.  
  
He had loving parents. He had determined parents. He had parents who wanted nothing more than to give their children the best life had to after, even if the best made them unhappy.  
  
In Jaejoong’s family the words ‘strategic alliance’ were just another term for arranged marriage or business merger. It just sounded more palatable. Three of Jaejoong’s older sisters had married that way so he was no stranger to the concept. But as the only boy he hadn’t expected to he would be involved in such things, at least not from the same side. But this was what his father wanted and Jaejoong had never been in a position to refuse the man anything, would never want to refuse the man anything.  
  
Jaejoong’s life could have been worse. He could have never had a father, never had a family, never had a place to belong. If this was what his father wanted, Jaejoong would do it and he would make sure it worked. He would marry Jung Yunho and he would be happy, would never give his father a reason to thing he had not done what was best for his only son. It was the least Jaejoong could do, the least of things Jaejoong would do.


	2. Chapter 2

If they see each other in the morning:  
  
    _“Good morning.” A greeting._  
  
    _“Good morning.” A response._  
  
And if they cross paths before sleeping:  
  
    _“Good night.” A valediction._  
  
    _“Good night.” An answer._  
  
They'd tried at first, to turn their situation into a relationship. But all their efforts had ended up in stunted conversations across a table, space filled by awkward silences.  
  
It was easier to just live their own lives. Together but always separate. Not even friends. Less than roommates even. Just strangers sharing the same space, trying not to get in each other's way.  
  
Something has to change, Jaejoong thinks.


	3. Chapter 3

Jaejoong finished off his third drink, waving away the bartender when he lifted a bottle asking if he wanted a refill. Intoxication was not his goal. His whole plan was already daft enough, it would just be worse if he was drunk on top of the ridiculousness of the entire situation.  
  
It was entirely ridiculousness. He was sitting in a bar, trying to drink enough to give him courage, but too much, about to ask the man he had been married to for a year on a date like they were perfect strangers. Ridiculous.  
  
Jaejoong had thought long and hard about what to do about his and Yunho’s nonexistent relationship and this was the best he had come up with.  
  
Some couples who had their marriages arranged fell in love over time. Some never fell in love but still managed to live together amicably. Some became friends. Some agreed to ignore each other’s existence from the beginning. And some, like Jaejoong and Yunho, tried to have a relationship but failed to look past the fact that they had been forced together and naturally drifted apart.  
  
It had been stupid to think they would fall into and be happy. Jaejoong wasn’t that sort of person. He needed the romance of a courtship. Needed to feel that jolt in his heart.  
  
So for tonight at least, he wouldn’t be Jung Jaejoong, husband. He would be Kim Jaejoong, so saw an attractive man out for a night with friends who worked up the courage to ask the man for a drink. Either it would work or nothing would change and tonight was their anniversary, as good a time to try to start something new as any.  
  
Jaejoong pushed his chair away from the bar and got up. He took a deep breath and walked over to the booth where Yunho was sitting, laughing with his friends.  
  
The laughter died down as each person noticed Jaejoong standing at the table. Yunho’s friends didn’t hate Jaejoong, after all it wasn’t his fault Yunho had to marry him. They’d been civil enough at the wedding and Jaejoong hadn’t really spoken to any of them after that, but the staring made him nervous. He focused on Yunho, who was frowning at him.  
  
“Hi,” Jaejoong said. “Can I buy you a drink?”  
  
  
“What?” Yunho asked.  
  
He wasn’t happy to see Jaejoong. Had the other man followed him here? For what reason? They married but he thought they’d implicitly agreed to simply live their separate lives. What did Jaejoong want?  
  
“Hi,” Jaejoong said again. “My name’s Jaejoong, can I buy you a drink?”  
  
Yunho’s eyebrows furrowed for a moment before his face relaxed in realization. Jaejoong was a giving them a chance.  
  
Yunho thought for a moment, watching Jaejoong nervously bite his lower lip. What would have happened if they had met like this, strangers in a bar, instead of uncomfortable introductions made by their parents? What would Yunho have done if a gorgeous man had worked up enough courage to ask him for a drink in front of all his friends? What would he have done if he wasn’t married?  
  
Yunho smiled and said, “Alright.”


	4. Chapter 4

There were rules for dating your husband. It was almost like a play, an act for which they demanded participation from family and friends.  
  
They didn’t leave home together and they didn’t return together. At first they took separate cars to go on their dates. Then, when one offered to pick up the other, he would leave early for a drive around the block before returning to their home and ringing the doorbell. At the end of the date, he would drop the other off and take a second drive around the neighborhood, giving the other enough time to settle before returning home himself.  
  
They stopped attending family functions together, for which they received disapproving looks from distant unimportant relatives and chastising inquiries. The words “Where is your husband?”handed out as frequently as hugs. And Jaejoong’s cheerful response of, “What husband?”, while his father looked on with a fond smile and tiny shake of his head.  
  
They were reintroduced to friends as a ‘new date’, which was received with mixed responses. From Yoochun, wide smiles and comments about how hot Jaejoong’s new boyfriend was. From Changmin, a skeptical look and grumbles about how he had already met Jaejoong and that they were just being silly.  
  
Those were the common responses. People either thought it was cute that they were doing this, romantic even, or that they were being silly.  
  
They still didn’t talk much if they ran into each other at home. In fact it was more likely they would run in the other direction. After all, they hadn’t reached the living together stage of their relationship yet so why would they see each other at home. But they talked on the phone, about where they would go on their next date, about work, about their families, about the old woman in the funny hat that Jaejoong had seen that afternoon, or about nothing at all. Sometimes they just called to hear the other breathing.  
  
It worked for them.


End file.
